2007/06/08 by Lucio Mayer, Stelios Kazantzidis, Piero Madau +3 · 6 citations
Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/science.1141858
published as Science 316 (2007) 1874-1877 · Accepted for publication in Science, 40 pages, 7 figures, Supplementary Information included
openalex publication_date 2007/06/08 · arxiv created 2007/06/11 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) are a ubiquitous component of the nuclei of galaxies. It is normally assumed that after the merger of two massive galaxies, a SMBH binary will form, shrink because of stellar or gas dynamical processes, and ultimately coalesce by emitting a burst of gravitational waves. However, so far it has not been possible to show how two SMBHs bind during a galaxy merger with gas because of the difficulty of modeling a wide range of spatial scales. Here we report hydrodynamical simulations that track the formation of a SMBH binary down to scales of a few light years after the collision between two spiral galaxies. A massive, turbulent, nuclear gaseous disk arises as a result of the galaxy merger. The black holes form an eccentric binary in the disk in less than 1 million years as a result of the gravitational drag from the gas rather than from the stars.